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Project Topic
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Cork oak (Quercus suber L.) is a drought-resistant forest species that finds its vegetation hotspot in the southwestern Mediterranean Basin region, in unique agroforestry systems. Here, cork oaks are ecological engineers contributing to ecosystem services such as soil conservation, water cycle regulation and carbon sequestration. More importantly, cork oaks provide the economic cornerstone for sustainable agroforestry due to cork yield.
Over the last ca. 50 years, climate change effects in the Mediterranean Basin region have negatively impacted tree and cork growth rates. Cork oak agroforestry systems emerged as highly fragile and readily affected by tree overexploitation and/or land abandonment due to inadequate practices and lack of economic reward. Adaptive management strategies have sharply focused on tree conservation in these agroforestry systems. So far, efforts to address cork quality yield, in sustainable agroforestry practices towards effective sustainable farming have been largely neglected and detached from these conservation issues. It is crucial to have up-to-date data and information on cork quality yield, one important target criterion to boost income and farm productivity in cork oak agroforestry systems of the Mediterranean Basin region.
In CorkMED, we will focus on the evaluation of the cork quality yield provisioning in cork oak agroforestry systems. We aim to provide accurate information based on on-ground data in a cork quality yield framework to overcome barriers between cork-producing countries of the Mediterranean basin. Our goal is to increase the perception of economically viable alternatives and overcome the limited availability of normalized information, mainly between European and North African countries, which poses substantial obstacles to the scaling up of innovative agroforestry practices and to favourable policies across the cork-producing countries of the Mediterranean basin.
Traditional agroforestry practices should be improved to more efficient, productive, and sustainable practices tailored to specific environmental factors such as climate and soil conditions, enhancing tree conservation and biodiversity. Within CokMED, we will review and identify a set of cork quality yield indicators based on basic data; map their spatial and temporal variation and; draw a monitoring framework in a web platform which will provide open access, detailed and timely information on cork quality yield across the Mediterranean basin cork-producing countries. This framework can be combined with remotely sensed data and crossed with other institutional frameworks in essential mapping tools for national, European and international policymakers, for the cork industry, researchers and academia, but mainly to smallholders accessing and utilizing such technologies to guide forest management practices, ensure long-term sustainability and profitability under a changing climate.
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